Just a quick preview, with
Spurs coming into the game on the back of two good wins and Wigan
approaching the meeting with two defeats ringing in their ears.

With Tottenham finding their
form, with the midfielder Luka Modric still there and now firing on
all cylinders, the team is still not settled, with injuries hitting
Harry Redknapp's selections. However, the depth of the
squad is now showing it's value and the difference between Spurs'
and Wigan's squads might be displayed here.

Without Rodellega, Wigan may
have to rely on Conor Sammon and Franco Di Santo up front. The
Italian has been on form this season after joining from Chelsea a
little while back. Roberto Martinez tries tog et his team
playing and that might suit Spurs, although last season, we failed
to beat the Latics home or away, so we need to improve that stat if
we are to move up the table.

I imagine Harry will want to
stay with Adebayor and Defoe, but will try and fir van der Vaart
into the equation and with Niko Kranjcar out injured and Aaron
Lennon injured too, the Dutchman could be fitted in on the right
side of midfield.

The Spurs defence has been
patched up of late, with Gallas and Dawson both out, but the
selection from King, Kaboul and Bassong has done well enough to shut
out Wolves and Liverpool. Hopefully, they will be able to keep
a third clean sheet on the trot.

While there is always the
thought that Wigan are a small Premier League club, they have become
more established in recent years, with last season's escape showing
that they have grit as well as some flair in their side.

However, I take Tottenham to
have too much for them, with Bale and Walker showing the way on the
flanks to provide the chances to seal a useful three points.

WIGAN ATHLETIC TEAM NEWS :
Ruled out of the game are Hugo Rodellega (knee), Emmerson Boyce
(hamstring) and Anton Alcaraz (thigh) and Steven Gohouri (calf) are
both doubts.

TOTTENHAM
HOTSPUR TEAM NEWS :
Spurs will be able to select Rafael van der Vaart and Sandro after
they came through the mid-week League Cup tie, but could be missing
Benoit Assou-Ekotto, who has a throat infection. Also
side-lined are Tom Huddlestone (ankle), Aaron Lennon (groin),
William Gallas (calf), Michael Dawson (Achilles), Niko Kranjcar
(hamstring), Roman Pavlyuchenko (hamstring) and Steven Pienaar
(groin).

Tottenham kicked off and played
towards the South Stand end in the
first half.

Wigan Athletic
:

kit

Tottenham Hotspur
:

kit

26Al Habsi

2
Gouhouri 25Caldwell22
van Anholt31 Figueroa

21 Diame 8Watson (16 MacArthur 73) 4
McCarthy 14 Gomez (23
Stam 46)

11 Moses 9 Di
Santo (18Sammon 73)

Unused subs:
1Kirkland
7Crusat
10Maloney
19Jones

24Friedel

28Walker 4Kaboul26King (c)32
Assou-Ekotto

8
Parker14
Modric30
Sandro (29
Livermore 90) 3Bale

11van
der Vaart (29dos
Santos 78)

10
Adebayor

Unused subs:23
Cudicini22
Corluka19
Bassong46
Carroll31
Townsend

Manager
:
Roberto Martinez

Manager
:
Harry Redknapp

Sponsor
:
12Bet

Shirt sponsor
:Aurasma

Kit Supplier
:
Mi-Fit

Kit Supplier
:
Puma

Match report

A sparkling first half
performance gave Spurs what proved to be a winning lead in the game
that saw Wigan come back strongly in the second half, despite being
reduced to ten men, making it an unnecessarily difficult task to
hold on to a 2-1 victory.

Having established their
superiority over Wigan in the first 45 minutes, where Friedel rarely
had a moment of concern, Tottenham managed to ease off and not kill
the opponents off, leaving the final stages of the match tense and
the Latics pushing on for a possible equaliser. But Spurs
should have been out of sight. The clinical way they finished
off Liverpool last week seemed a long time ago, with chances going
begging here, when they should have been netted to put Wigan to the
sword ... as the club have done before.

With Assou-Ekotto recovering
from a throat infection, but with Jermain Defoe going down with a
virus, it allowed Harry to accommodate Rafael van der Vaart just
behind Emmanuel Adebayor. With Sandro back, Niko Kranjcar's
absence was accounted for and Spurs kicked off, with Walker making
an early foray down the right to put in a low cross. When the
first Tottenham goal came in the third minute, it was as a result of
a mistake by Maynor Figueroa, who slipped and turned possession over
to Adebayor. Looking up, he picked out a low pass to Rafael
van der Vaart, who was able to hit a first time left foot shot from
around the penalty spot into the top left hand corner of Ali
Al-Habsi's goal to make it 1-0.

An early goal for a second
week running is almost unheard of with Spurs, so it set them up
nicely to take advantage of the nervousness that seemed to be
running through the Wigan team, as well as the rancour that they
were aiming at each other too. One incident saw Ben Watson and
Al-Habsi almost have a stand-up row in the box. Walker created
a chance for Adebayor, but the striker shot over from close range
and with 13 minutes on the clock, Friedel had his only work of the
first half, when he challenged Moses, as Gomez fired in a
free-kick.

Bale's cross picked out
Walker, who had to go low to head the ball, but could not get it on
target and then the provider did better when he had the opportunity
in the 23rd minute. Walker had made a good run on the right to
deliver a cross that Caldwell had to put behind for a corner.
From Modric's corner, the Welshman got to the ball at the near post
to head past the Wigan goalie to double the lead for Spurs.

Latics defender Gohouri took
it out on Bale with a foul in the 26th minute that earned him a
yellow card and then it was Tottenham's turn to defend and not very
well, as Kaboul's back pass left Friedel having to race out to hack
clear as Di Santo shut him down. Bale almost repeated the goal
with a similar header from another Modric corner, but this time he
put it a little too high before hitting a low shot on the half hour
that Al Habsi saved at his near post. Five minutes before the
break, Bale picked up the ball when it was cleared and set up
Adebayor for a firm shot that the keeper dived to push away.

Spurs had dictated play from
the off and had made enough chances to win a couple of games, but
with the score at 2-0, the next goal would always determine how the
game might go. Five minutes into the half and Wigan had
got the impetus back. Assou-Ekotto took too much time trying
to clear a ball in his own box and Ronnie Stam shut him down,
blocking the ball into the air, when Ledley's header sent it to
Diame. The home midfielder took a touch to make some space and
who then fired in a low drive into the net inside Friedel's left
hand post.

Nerves might have started to
spread through the Spurs side, but Kaboul's long pass forward gave
Adebayor a chance, but Al-Habsi was down quickly to save at the foot
of his post. The next time the Togo forward was on the ball,
Figueroa flattened him and the physio had to come on to treat him
and get him back on the pitch. The challenge seemed to take a
lot out of him and his effectiveness was not as great after the
incident. It was typical of Wigan's approach in the second
half that Bale's run at Gohouri ended with him being brought down by
a wayward tackle by the Wigan defender leading to his dismissal when
he received his second yellow card.

From this position,
Tottenham should have gone on to comfortably take the three points,
but it wasn't like that. Wigan were inspired to work harder
with ten men and despite a goalmouth scramble when Modric dribbled
into the box and the ball bounced around before Benoit went down
under a tackle, but it wasn't a penalty.

With yellow cards for
McCarthy and Sammon, with the latter coming on with MacArthur, the
home team looked to get something out of the match. van der
Vaart departed with dos Santos coming on in his place and his
introduction initially took Tottenham forward. He held
the ball up well in the corner of the pitch before setting up Modric
who did not meet it as sweetly as last week, making for an easy stop
for the Athletic goalie, who had little hope when Kaboul crashed in
a free-kick that took a deflection on it's way through and rattled
the crossbar. Not only that, but the French defender got
on the end of the resulting corner, but couldn't hit the target,
putting his header wide of the post.

Spurs should have been
pushing the ball further up the field, instead of dallying on it in
midfield, which is what Assou-Ekotto did leaving Wigan to take the
ball away and only a poor pass that ran through to the Spurs goalie
saved them from an embarrassing moment. As did Friedel seeing
MacArthur attempting an audacious effort form near the halfway line.
Only a poor finish from a move that ended with a good piece of
control by Sammon kept Tottenham in the lead, as the Irishman's
volley went well of target.

While the ball was fed
through Moses as he tried to make a breakthrough, Spurs doubled up
with Livermore coming on to shore up the middle, while Bale switched
to the right to counter the former Crystal Palace winger's threat.
However, Tottenham did enough to hold on to the lead and the three
points did head back to London, but they were three sweat stained
points in the end.

This result righted some wrongs that Spurs had suffered last season
and helps them put the points gained total back in the right
direction. While we were bottom a couple of weeks ago, we now
sit sixth in the table and looking good. While the team looked
a little sluggish in the second half, it will allow Harry to put out
a stronger Europa League side on Thursday, but he will be aware that
there is a derby game at the Lane next Sunday that needs a good
eleven out on the pitch.

Wigan raised their game, but
became a little too hasty in the tackle, leaving them vulnerable to
conceding free-kicks and also ending up a man down. Whether
they would have put up such a fiesty response had they still had
eleven men, we will never know, but Tottenham stood firm and three
consecutive Premier League wins has helped kick start out season
after the postponement and two defeats.

After last week's
performance, I thought we had looked like we had turned a corner in
our development as a team and had learned how to kill teams off
clinically, but today, we showed the old failings of not taking our
chances and allowing team's back into a match that we should have
already have wrapped up.

Sloppiness at the
back nearly proved costly here, with Wigan giving it a go to get a
late equaliser, but against better teams, we will lose points and
that will cost us come the end of the season.

We must be more ruthless with our finishing and
especially from free-kicks. Whenever we win one just outside
the box, it is usually no threat to the other side. It was a
shock to see Kaboul get a shot on target from one near the end of
the game and but for a deflection might have scored. However,
with the players we have in the team, it is always likely that they
will be fouled around the box, so we need to work on the set-pieces
at training to make them more deadly.

Having had my moan, the first half was almost
exemplary and the two goals could easily have been about six, with
the openings we created, against a side who sat too deep and allowed
Tottenham to go at them.

Three points though and another outcome the same
next Sunday would be most welcome.

Other scores
during this week :

Arsenal

3

Bolton Wanderers

0

Saturday

Chelsea

4

Swansea City

1

Saturday

Liverpool

2

Wolverhampton
Wanderers

1

Saturday

Manchester City

2

Everton

0

Saturday

Newcastle United

3

Blackburn Rovers

1

day

Stoke City

1

Manchester United

1

Saturday

West Bromwich Albion

0

Fulham

0

Saturday

Queens Park Rangers

1

Aston Villa

1

Sunday

Norwich City

2

Sunderland

1

Monday

League Table

P

W

D

L

F

A

Pts

GD

1

Manchester United

6

5

1

0

22

5

16

+17

2

Manchester City

6

5

1

0

19

5

16

+14

3

Chelsea

6

4

1

1

12

7

13

+5

4

Newcastle United

6

3

3

0

7

3

12

+4

5

Liverpool

6

3

1

2

8

8

10

0

6

TOTTENHAM HOTSPUR

5

3

0

2

9

9

9

0

7

Stoke City

6

2

3

1

3

5

9

-2

8

Aston Villa

6

1

5

0

7

5

8

+2

9

Norwich City

6

2

2

1

7

8

8

-1

10

Queens Park Rangers

6

2

2

2

5

7

8

-2

11

Everton

5

2

1

2

6

6

7

0

12

Wolverhampton Wanderers

6

2

1

3

5

8

7

-3

13

Arsenal

6

2

1

3

9

14

7

-5

14

Sunderland

6

1

2

3

7

6

5

+1

15

Wigan Athletic

6

1

2

3

4

8

5

-4

16

Swansea City

6

1

2

3

4

9

5

-5

17

Fulham

6

0

4

2

4

7

4

-3

18

Blackburn Rovers

6

1

1

4

8

13

4

-5

19

West Bromwich Albion

6

1

1

4

3

8

4

-5

20

Bolton Wanderers

6

1

0

5

8

16

3

-8

Position before match :
11th
Position after match : 6th
Position after the weekend : 6th